Saturday 30 June 2012

Collection blogger nail art competition

Collection recently tweeted that they wanted to recruit beauty / nail bloggers. If you want to take part, all you have to do is email your blog name, with a link to: collection@mosquitodigital.co.uk

You will then receive an email giving the following details:

To enter, you simply need to create Olympic themed nail art/nails (your design MUST use at least two Collection Nail Polish shades) and send it to the above email address.
All entries must be received by 3rd July at 12:00PM and include a list of product names and shades you have used to create your nails. And the best bit is, you can enter more than once. So, if you are feeling creative, feel free to send them as many designs as you want.

Once the Collection team have received all the entries, they will pick their favourite 5 nail designs. These 5 designs will then be uploaded to the Collection Facebook page, along with your name, the name of your blog and a link. The Collection Facebook fans will then vote on their favourite design to win the competition.The winner will receive the full Hot Looks Nail Polish range, whilst the runners-up will receive a selection of Hot Looks Nail Polishes.

So, i picked out all the Collection nail polish shades that i owned and sat down to do some nail art. I had completed 4 of the 5 nails on my left hand and couldn't think what else to do. Given that im from Northern Ireland, I was relucant to draw a flag, but i had run out of ideas. So, if your from N.I, please do not take offence, i simply drew the flag as the olympics are taking place in London.

Here is a picture of my nail art:


I used the following Collection shades:

Thumb nail - Collection Hot Looks number 5 - Siren.
Pinty finger nail - Collection Vernis a Ongles - number 185.
Middle finger nail - Collection Hot Looks number 13 - Vogue.
Ring finger nail - Collection Vernis a Ongles - number 230.
Wee finger nail - Collection Vernis a Ongles - number 144.

So, what do you think of my nails? Is anyone else taing part in this competition?

Tuesday 26 June 2012

More Janchristie Nail art Stickers

I have previously blogged about JanChristie Nail Art Stickers. They provide a wide range of stickers, at a really low cost (£1.80 for 24 stickers!!) and they can make personalised nail art stickers too, which i have blogged about previously as well.

I’ve bought several of their designs and wanted to use the again recently, but i couldn’t decide which one i wanted to use, so i decided to use a variety:

Butterfly, snarling tiger, blue periwinkle flower, husky dog and a robin.


chestnut horse, tiger, cat, lion and rose.
I love these stickers, so will definitely be buying a load more :)

My lastest shopping buys....

I went for a little shop yday, Heres a little picture of my purchases:


Best part is, if you spend over £6 on Barry M, you get a free retro nail polish, which is why, i got the two on the left free (the red and the blue) :)

Any one else buy any nail varnish lately?

Thursday 21 June 2012

Nail Art challenge

Im considering challenging myself to do differnt nails every day of the month of july. now i just have to come up with 31 different challenges! lol.

Anyone any suggestions?

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Pastel Nails

In a recent posting i blogged about the different products i had bought from Avon. I have since used the Nailwear Pro+ nail polishes – Lemon Sugar and Pastel Pink:



 It took 2-3 coats to get an opaque colour, but they are really nice when on. I had intented to either do some nail art or use some of my janchristie nail art stickers, but i changed my mind after i had my nails painted. Instead, im gonna repaint them on fri (after they have chipped due to working in the off-licence) and then use the janchristie nail art stickers. When ive done that, i'll do another wee blog post.

 i saw on the Avon facebook page that they are testing new shades for that range. I can not wait until they release them. The Orchid Splash looks like a really nice shade of purple, which im definitely going to have to try!

Has anyone else tried any of the Nailwear Pro+ range?

Thursday 14 June 2012

Soft soft skin

I am always complaining to my friend Claire about parts of my face being dry and about having ‘flaky’ skin. So, when my mum recently bought me the Witch exfoliating face wash, i assumed it would just be one more product that wouldn’t work for me.

I have to admit, this time i was wron!. I now have lovely soft, non-flaky skin! Smile  I have been using it for 6 days now, but after 3 days of use, my skin was noticeably softer. I use this exfoliating face wash along with the Simple hydrating moisturiser, which i love also.

Here’s a couple of photos of my two favourite facial products:

2012-06-14 15.28.35
2012-06-14 15.23.56

Does anyone else use these products?

Update: Please be careful to read the back on products carefully! I read this one and another and ended up mixing up which was a 'daily ' and which was a 'regualr' use product. Thankfully Claire commented on this posting and i went back to read the products and realsied my mistake.

Thursday 7 June 2012

My photo(s) of the day /Avon delivery/bargains

My Avon delivery came today Smile

So below is a couple of photos of what i ordered:



The first photo shows the cherry blossom body lotion and room spray.

In the middle photo there is the Avon Peeling and Brittleness solver, Liquid Freeze and two Nailwear Pro+ nail polishes – Lemon Sugar and Pastel Pink.

The last photo shows the strawberry  room spray and body scrub.

I purchased these products in the last Avon brochure, and my local rep delivered them to me today Smile There was a sale on for some of these items, when i bought them. I have to say that spending £19.73 on 8 products, wasn’t bad going!

The nailwear pro nail polishes are up to £6 now in the new brochure, though they are still £2.49 on their website today, however not all of the colours are available at the moment. I will do a review of each product as soon as i get time to try them out.

Has anyone else been buying Avon goodies?

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Nail Art Stamping Plates…the good and the not so good….

Last week, i posted about the different nail art stamping plates i had recently purchased.
Transformers Smile

I decided to give them a go yesterday before work. For my first attempt, i used the QA4 plate which had transformers on it:

SAM_2228

For the nail on my ring finger i used Collection 2000’s Black, number 87, Ebony and to do the stamp i used Rimmel’s Silver, number 239 called ‘Your Majesty.’ For the rest of the nails, i used the Silver by Rimmel and to do the design on the thumb nail i used the black by Collection 2000.

When the nails are painted, the next step was to put the nail polish onto the plate. You don’t need a lot of nail polish to do this, just enough to cover the design:

SAM_2238

Once that is done, you scrape off the excess nail polish using your scraper:

SAM_2237

Once you have scraped off the excess nail polish, you lift the stamper and press it gently onto the plate and this lifts the design:

SAM_2239

Now comes the part that needs to be done fairly quickly. Once the design is on the stamper, you need to quickly put the design onto your nail before it dries. To put it onto your nail, it is best to hold the stamper at one side of the nail and gently roll it across the nail. The design will now be on your nail. Remember to clean the stamper, scraper and plate with nail polish remover, every time you use it.

This is how it turned out:

2012-06-05 16.14.43

I have to admit, it seemed really complicated and i wasn’t sure if i would be able to do it, but it turned out to be easier than i thought it would be. When the nails were dry, I then put a top coat over the two transformers nail art, using Collection 200’s clear nail polish, number 2, called ice cube.

The only thing about the nail art is they aren’t overly straight, though i think it turned out ok, for a first attempt. So overall im really pleased with my Transformers Nail Art.

Care Bears Sad smile

So having done the Transformers on the nails on my left hand, i thought i would give the Care Bears plate, SdP 3, a go, on my right hand:



I painted my nails using the same black and silver colours as i mentioned above.

However, i was not as pleased with the results of this plate as i was with the previous plate. After putting the polish onto the plate and scrapping away the excess, i used the stamper to lift the design. Only, the design wouldn’t lift properly, so i tried again:

SAM_2240

It still didn’t lift the design. I then tried several different colours on several of the designs on that plate and still the stamper wouldn’t lift the design. I cleaned the stamper again and still it wouldn’t work. So, I went back to the transformer plate and used the stamper again and it worked fine with it.

So i have now contacted the administration of the website where i purchased the plate to ask if there is a special nail polish i should be using or what the problem could be.